OLD MAN KANGAROO AT FIVE THAT AFTERNOON

By Rudyard Kipling (First Published 1902)

Old Man Kangaroo at five in the afternoon.

THIS is the picture of Old Man Kangaroo at five in the afternoon, when he had got his beautiful hind legs just as Big God Nqong had promised. You can see that it is five o'clock, because Big God Nqong's pet taine clock says so. That is Nqong, in his bath, sticking his feet out. Old Man Kangaroo is being rude to Yellow~Dog Dingo. Yellow-Dog Dingo has been trying to catch Kangaroo all across Australia. You can see the marks of Kangaroo's big new feet running ever so far back over the bare hills. Yellow~Dog Dingo is drawn black, because I am not allowed to paint these pictures with real colours out of the paint-box and besides, Yellow~Dog Dingo got dreadfully black and dusty after running through the Flinders and the cinders.

I don't know the names of the flowers growing round Nqong's bath. The two little squatty things out in the desert are the other two gods that Old Man Kangaroo spoke to early in the morning. That thing with the letters on it is Old M an Kangaroo's pouch. He had to have a pouch just as he had to have legs.